Motor Admin Alternative: is Avo the right choice for me?
Yes, we're biased. We build Avo everyday with the goal to be the best admin framework for Rails apps and we're not ashamed about that.
We also think that Motor Admin is a very valid alternative to build an admin panel using Rails.
Avo and Motor Admin are built with the goal of avoiding the repetitive tasks that are needed to build any admin panel or internal tooling: CRUD, view creation, filtering, searching — the usual boring stuff.
However, there are some differences that might help you decide which option is best for you. Let's explore them:
The experience of building a no-code or low-code admin panel
Building things without resorting to code is a very ambitious premise and it's been one of the most sought after features of software since the very beginnings of the industry.
After all, a programmer's job is to translate requirements into what a computer can understand and execute.
Developments like SQL, the database querying language that powers most of dynamic applications nowadays, or Visual Basic, were built with the goal of replacing previously existing programming languages with a new language that managers or stakeholders could write without knowing the intricacies of how computers work.
The same can be said about newer developments like some CMSs or no-code/low-code tools like Zapier or Airtable.
For such an ambitious promise, these tools have delivered some mixed results through the years:
- They failed to achieve their original goal but made things better for everybody: even if the goal of getting rid of programmers was tried a bunch of times but never fully achieved, these tools reached the goal of lowering the bar for newcomers and old-timers equally.
- We can build awesome stuff without needing to code: think about building a website with content management in the 90's vs doing the same thing with tools like Webflow or Wordpress. The same thing can be said about other no-code/low-code platforms that allow us to build products like mobile apps or data backed applications even if we're not programmers.
- No-code means some-code: until now, no-code tools have made software capable of generating software. However, the fact that software is still being generated to talk to computers (that still speak the same language as 50 years ago) proves that some coding is needed along the way. Even though we're getting closer, handling the ever growing complexity of software is not yet doable without writing code at some point of the journey.
When it comes to internal tools or admin panels, aiming to build them without writing code is achievable but it comes with the same frictions and disadvantages that every piece of no-code/low-code software has.
In this regard Motor Admin has both an advantage and a disadvantage: you can write admin panels with minimal coding intervention but if you end up needing to customize something along the way you will need to resort to a developer or learn how to do it yourself.
The pros and cons of Motor Admin
Motor Admin brings a breath of fresh air to the Rails admin ecosystem.
It has a very different approach compared to previous solutions that laid the foundation but now feel outdated. That's why we welcome Motor Admin as a competitor, as it elevates the entire ecosystem.
So here are the benefits and downsides we consider for Motor Admin:
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Build an admin panel with little to no code: Motor Admin allows you to build internal tooling using little to no-code. The Motor Admin Rails gem is designed to build an admin panel around the models you already have or you add to your application. Configuration is handled entirely from the UI. This has the advantage to allow non technical people to build internal tooling around Rails code without even knowing there's code.
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Build with a stack other than Rails: in case you don't use Rails or are not interested in using it, Motor Admin allows you to hook your admin panel to a database (MySQL, Postgres, SQL Server) and use any stack you want to use on top of the database. Beyond Rails, you can use Node, PHP, Go, Spring Boot, Phoenix, .NET and Rails. It also allows you to use a self-hosted/managed Postgres services like Supabase which gives you extra features like authentication, real time updates and battle tested scaling.
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A nice feature set that allows you to build faster: Motor Admin has a variety of features that can accelerate the development process when you're starting out from a Rails codebase. You can actually use it's UI to build the views for your resources, filter and search data. It also allows you to add dashboards, forms and queries to help you navigate the needs of your internal tooling.
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Ability to create reports and data visualizations from the UI: it gives you the ability to define and store queries using SQL which can be made into dashboards to facilitate data visualization via charts.
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Poor documentation: The documentation for Motor Admin as of today is definitely not its strong suit. They have a total of 11 documentation pages as of today. Avo has 96 documentation pages and counting.
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Built as an SPA using Vue.js: Motor Admin is built using Vue.js for the frontend and Rails for the backend. Even though it's a perfectly valid tech stack, deviating from the Rails standard stack is a weakness for Motor Admin when it comes to customizing your experience if you are building Rails projects. However, if you're building an SPA with Rails as the backend, you're more equipped to customize Motor Admin.
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It's a mostly inactive project: it has gotten 6 commits since the beginning of 2024 and 74 commits in 2023. The repository has unanswered issues from more than a year ago. Overall it doesn't seem like Motor Admin is a priority right now. It also doesn't seem to be getting many pull requests or improvements.
What makes Avo the right choice for your next application
Avo and Motor Admin can make you more productive than you would be without an admin framework.
However, Avo is easily customizable, which is an advantage over Motor Admin when it comes to keeping that productivity in the long term.
Yet, the main fact that makes Avo a better alternative to Motor Admin is that it's actively improved each and supported by a community of free and paying users that push Avo's development further each and every day.
Let's see what makes Avo a great choice when it comes to building internal tooling or admin panels using Rails:
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A wealth of fields: Avo comes with more than 30 fields out of the box. They allow you to meet the needs of most Rails apps without resorting to customization. You're covered if you need: text, WYSIWYG editors, password, money, number, boolean, progress, datetime, select, taglist, key value pair, file upload, and others.
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Easily customizable: we've made Avo as easy to customize as possible by making a series of technical decisions to help users build upon Avo to extend it and to have what we like to call "escape hatches": possibilities to replace parts of Avo (views, partials, fields, components, scopes, etc) and
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Built with the tools you already know: Avo is built using tools that most Rails developer use on their day to day. That means that you can get up to speed very quickly and be productive with Avo even if you've never used it before.
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Great documentation: We know that searching for proper documentation can be a time drag. That's why every Avo's feature is properly documented within our docs. The documentation is also searchable, indexed by search engines and referenced in our release videos whenever it's pertinent. We make an effort to document every change we make in a friendly way to save time for our users.
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Constantly improved: Avo has about 10 times more commits and releases than Motor Admin. This means that even if you decide to go for the free Avo tier, the library will not only be properly maintained but also improved as time goes by. You can also rest assured about the stability of the library in the long term, we've a strong user and customer base and the product is constantly growing.
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Some code is required to build with Avo Right now, Avo requires you to have some knowledge of Ruby on Rails to build with it. You can start with nothing but the basics to build products and learn along the way while being insanely productive from the get go. Of course, you can also make use of Avo if you're an advanced Rails developer by avoiding to write the same ol' CRUD interface again and saving time in the process.
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Avo is currently a Rails only solution Avo is a Ruby gem that works for Rails projects. So that means that you can't hook it directly to a database or use a different tech stack to build your product.
So, should I choose Avo or Motor Admin?
Well, as with a lot of stuff, it depends: you can choose either of them and get a satisfactory experience, at least when starting out.
If you're not technical or you're reluctant to handle code you should probably choose Motor Admin you can build an quickly build an admin panel and enjoy the features it gives you.
You should also consider the tech stack when making the decision: if you don't really care about Rails or the Rails way you can consider Motor Admin as an alternative. However, if you're a Rails developer or comfortable writing Rails code, Avo is probably the better choice for you.
Contemplate that the no-code/low-code premise can be hard to accomplish in the long term. If you're aware that you will need a developer to help you with your needs you can safely go the Motor Admin route.
Also, even though Motor Admin can help you build a project without using much code, there are probably more beginner friendly alternatives in the market that can abstract you even further away from code: Airtable, Bubble, among others.
Having said this, you should also consider that Avo is an actively maintained library that can ensure you that you won't be on your own down the road if you pick it to build internal tooling or admin panels.
Motor Admin seems to have stalled a bit lately while Avo is as active as ever (if not more).
The elephant in the room: why is Avo a paid product?
You're probably wondering why would anyone pay for an admin framework like Avo if there are other alternatives like Active Admin, Rails Admin or Administrate right?
Well, for starters, our free Community tier can take you very far when building internal tools or admin panels: 70% of the features of our paid plans are present on out free tier and we're also constantly adding new features to it.
Also, the fact that Avo has paid plans reflects that we're here for the long run: we plan to keep improving Avo every single day to give our paying customers the best admin experience we can while making sure we add the features they need and fixing issues as fast as we can.
Paid products might seem like a bad idea when you're starting out and time is not a constraint. After all, you can probably build it in a weekend right? — well it's not that easy.
Avo's paid plans can save you hundreds of hours of development time for a small fraction of the cost of what a senior developer would charge for a fraction of the features.
Motor Admin also offers custom Pro and Pro Enterprise plans that gives you access to some customization and authorization features (2FA and SSO). However, their current pricing page doesn't show their actual pricing without some kind of interaction (an email or a meeting). The last price available at their /pro pricing page showed a price of $24 per user per month (which would make $288 per user per year). Avo has a $500 Pro plan and an advanced $1000 Advanced per app or URL irresctritive of the amount of users.
But don't take our word on it, give Avo a try by checking our demo application or installing it for your next project and see for yourself how it can positively affect your development flow.
